Why ‘Fake News’ as Word of the Year is Bad for Human Rights

U.S. President Donald Trump accuses a CNN reporter of being "fake news" after signing a memorandum directing the U.S. Trade Representative to complete a review of trade issues with China at the White House in Washington, U.S. August 14, 2017.

It’s not that the decision itself is bad – it certainly reflects the reality of our political discourse. But the growing ubiquity of fake news poses serious challenges for the human rights movement since it blurs the lines between fact and fiction, truth and lies.

Both fact-finding and story-telling start with witnessing. Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust, dedicated his life to the obligation to give witness and speak out in the hope that, by imagining the unthinkable, we would ensure it never happened again. “Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented,” he would say.

With each encounter with victims, human rights activists must bring a commitment to meticulous fact-finding, the sifting of evidence, the corroboration of details, and the pursuit of a truth that will ultimately lead to justice.

But the problem is broader. The purveyors of fake news seek to make facts fungible, and to render the world a cacophony of competing hyper-partisan narratives where adjudication becomes meaningless and the only truth flows from supporters of the demagogue.

Political leaders around the world have begun to deploy the label “fake news” as a smear on fact-finding by journalists, human rights organizations, perhaps even prosecutors. In doing so, they seek to break the link between evidence and culpability, making it more difficult to ensure those accountable pay for their misdeeds.

Every day, ordinary people risk their lives and liberty to tell their stories and share the truth with human rights activists because they know that the alternative is silence and continuing injustice. If we fail to protect the sanctity of facts and truth, we risk losing their confidence – and our effectiveness.

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